CotC #159 @ Blawg Review

Welcome to the 159th CotC: Lawyers are Capitalists II

We're hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists here on Blawg Review as our way of giving back to the CotC, the business blog carnival that inspired our own Blawg Review, the carnival of law bloggers.

Running their own small businesses or large professional consultancies, and serving their business clients, lawyers have a interest in the subjects regularly covered by business bloggers featured in the Carnival of the Capitalists each Monday.

Next week, the CotC will be hosted at The Pine Needle Lawn, a weblog many overworked lawyers and entrepreneurs would be wise to visit before it's too late.

We've encouraged our regular contributors to Blawg Review to recommend something this week for our Carnival of the Capitalists, and to participate in future editions as well. It's a great way to get a law blog seen by business blog readers. So, let's see what is featured on this business blog carnival.

Business Blogfathers

Rob May, the Business Pundit who co-founded the Carnival of the Capitalists three years ago, is flabbergasted at what's going on at Starbucks.

Jay Solo, the other co-founder, hosted an amazing 158th Edition of the CotC last week, featuring many of the best posts of the past three years. So, if you're new to the Carnival of the Capitalists, the historic Third Anniversary Edition is a great place to get all caught up.

The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere!(TM)

This week, and every week, check out On the Moneyed Midways, the web's weekly round-up of the top posts from the blogosphere's major business and money-related blog carnivals. This week's award goes to Why Study the "Fundamentals"? where the ValueBlogger shows not just why fundamental analysis should play a large role in your selecting stocks for your investment portfolio, but also why you shouldn't rely on "professionals" to do it!

And while you're visiting Political Calculations, one of the best business blogs anywhere, imho, be sure to read Ironman's own post titled Making Waves at the Multiplex.

Editor's Choice

Carmine Coyote, at Slow Leadership, argues that many of the ethical problems afflicting business today are due to clever, ambitious, arrogant people, who hold the view that they’re way smarter than your average Joe, even the average Joe in the boardroom. For them, the ends justify some very dubious means.

Disorderly Submissions & Recommendations

If you’ve decided that you want to try to solve a legal problem without using a lawyer, to learn about an area of the law before deciding whether to hire a lawyer to work on all or part of an issue or case, or simply to be a better-informed client, there are a lot of resources available to assist you in your task, and a good place to start is this law blog -- shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress.

Jack Yoest at Reasoned Audacity asks, "Is good old fashioned boot-licking dead?"

Talk about capitalism! Low supply and high demand at airport security. Exclusive story at fivecentnickel.

Michael Wade at Execupundit.com gives ten reasons why managers give inflated, inaccurate, performance evaluations.

James Hamilton of Econbrowser says, "Mixed signals this week leave Bernanke still needing to earn his pay."

"The more you address your prospect's underlying business driver, the better your chance of gaining a new customer, says Jim Logan, adding, "Your speeds-feeds-features-functionalities only matter to the extent they prove your ability to fulfill on your stated benefits and ability to address your prospect’s business issue.

Neal Phenes at Et Tu Bloge says, "Bono, the famous lead singer for the rock band U-2, may practice a misguided form of economics with his renowned world aid program but at least his business management understands the subject."

JLP figgers out How to Calculate Tax-Equivalent Yield at AllFinancialMatters, a personal finance blog dedicated to discussing such topics as budgeting, asset allocation, 401K, IRA, cash flow, insurance, financial planning, portfolio management, and other areas in personal finance.

Dan Melson posts an article about First Time Buyer Programs: The Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC).

The Fresnel lens, developed in 1822, may help to significantly increase the efficiency of solar cells. Interesting stuff. You can read about it at Photon Courier.

Everyone speaks, often at the same time, no one listens to anyone else and then everyone agrees to everything on the assumption that it doesn’t matter anyway. Welcome to the Small Office.

"Instead of spending 'economic development' money on bribes and tax breaks, why not spend the cash on higher education?" Brian Gongol asks.

Chris Brunner at The Small Business Buzz offers good advice in the first of a four-part series of posts about Starting Your Own Business. There are links to all four parts in this series!

On his excellent business blog, Passion, People and Principles, David Maister writes about getting an organization to stretch.

Kate Zimmermann examines why Facebook is worth $Billions this Holiday Season.

"PayPerPost has been heating up the blogosphere by offering a market for "purchasing" the influence of bloggers," say Michael Cage of the Aggressive Small Business Marketing blog. "Is it really an insidious new threat or does it only make explicit what has been going on in different forms for some time?"

A viral marketing campaign in support of the small business economy of the Gulf Coast is being launched by the Carnival of Hurricane Relief. Check it out and see how you can help.

Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World tells us what to do with problem customers.

Pawel Brodzinski at Software Project Management has offers some advice on how to plan a career.

Leon Gettler at Sox First looks at stock option backdating. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now examining whether directors who sit on more than one company board may have spread the practice of backdating stock-option grants with research showing that 40 per cent of the companies under scrutiny have common directors. This is all part of the “six degrees of separation” theory of corporate governance.

Announcing the nominees for the CreditCard.org Lemon Award, the Prince of Thrift offers advice on Becoming & Staying Debt Free.

"We're here, we're queer, and we aren't going shopping without coupons" proclaims the tagline of the Queercents personal finance blog, where Nina posts an interesting little story about God and the Million Dollar Bill.

Is it worth taking a $10k pay cut for a job you love? FreeMoneyFinance considers money versus fulfillment in your career. What's the trade-off?

Johnny Debacle at Long or Short Capital posts Four Simple Steps to Becoming a Billionaire.

Vihar Sheth at green|rising changes the tagline of his blog to "Common Sense for the Common Good" and asks What Drives Effective Policy?

Lawyers Are Capitalists Too

Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends says virtual businesses are on the rise and that there's a New Growth Trend: Businesses that Serve Virtual Businesses.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch says a robust virtual economy has blossomed on SecondLife as well, pointing to the upcoming launch of Crayon, a virtual consulting company that claims to be the first company to be launched in SecondLife.

Wordlab, the free business resource for naming and branding, takes a poke at a website for lawyers, showing that it's all about the benjamins.

Speaking of naming and branding, Anthony Cerminaro, a trademark lawyer, makes note of some points to think about when naming your business.

Mark at SportsBiz asks, "Will Dr. J Buy the Sixers?"

Patent Baristas, who have hosted previous editions of the Carnival of the Capitialists and Blawg Review, might send this post to Grand Rounds, the carnival of the medibloggers: "Should Doctors Be Paid To Give Inside Info To Wall Street?"

Emily Campbell, at PHOSITA, discusses The Philly Cheesesteak Family Feud.

Ron Coleman has a post titled Emerson InSinkErator trash compactors will mangle your hand if you stick it in one of them.

Even portly people have protections, as a little-known Michigan law is being used to punish employers that let them go. InsureBlog's Henry Stern weighs in with the full story in a post he titles Legal Heavyweights.

Peter Lattman reports on the WSJ Law Blog that Lawyers Call Grasso Ruling "Stunning" and "Extraordinary". A New York Supreme Court judge ruled former NYSE chief must repay certain payments and interest he got during his tenure at the Big Board--about $100 million of it.

Dale Oesterle, at the Business Law Prof Blog, takes a look at executive compensation and government regulation and finds there's a connection.

Carolyn Elefant at MyShingle asks lawyers, "Do you eat your own dogfood?"

Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity has an excellent post about business lessons learned from conflict.

Steve Bainbridge, a law professor at UCLA who has for three years published one of the most eclectic blogs anywhere, has grown tired of political punditry and his own eclecticism. So he's reconstructing his famous blog at ProfessorBainbridge.com, and "repositioning it as what it started out to be; namely, a niche blog focused on business law and economics." That's good news for fans of the Carnival of the Capitalists, which he hosted in 2003, and for Blawg Review, too, which Professor Bainbridge will be hosting soon.

Moving on now, from one business law prof to another we segue to the carnival of law bloggers, Blawg Review #80, where Professor Kingsfield, the iconic law professor who taught contracts at Harvard Law School in the book, movie, and televison series, The Paper Chase, is our special host this week.